Lehigh Valley Dual Language Charter School for the Arts, Bethlehem Area district work on details of move

MORNING CALL FILE PHOTO

Liberty High School

Liberty High School (MORNING CALL FILE PHOTO)

Christy PotterSpecial to The Morning Call

Lehigh Valley Dual Language Charter School for the Arts is planning a move within Bethlehem.

Whether the Lehigh Valley Dual Language Charter School for the Arts can renovate its new building without going through the public bidding process is awaiting the opinions of attorneys for both the charter school and the Bethlehem Area School District.

Charter school Principal Lisa Pluchinsky met with the school board's Curriculum Committee on Monday evening to discuss the project, which involves considerable alterations at 603 E. Broad St.

In November, the board denied a request from the charter school to open a second location at the former Seton Academy in west Bethlehem. Charter school officials have said they have outgrown the current location at 551 Thomas St. to such an extent that they're losing students every week.

The board rejected the charter's proposal to move middle school students to another building last school year, citing a law that charter schools outside of Philadelphia cannot operate in two locations.

The state Charter School Appeal Board upheld the board's decision, but a panel of Commonwealth Court judges ruled in June that charter schools can open more than one school by amending the charters they hold with a local school board. The district asked that the entire Commonwealth Court hear the case. The court refused, but the district appealed to the state Supreme Court, which last month agreed to hear the case.

In the meantime, the charter school has begun making plans to move into the East Broad Street building, which Pluchinsky said is large enough for all of the school's students and staff.

At Monday's meeting, directors reviewed the charter school's renovation plan, which includes construction of additional boys' and girls' bathrooms, construction of a kitchen and cafeteria space, conversion of the current theater to a gym, and increasing the size of two classrooms.

The board also received a more detailed report from Christopher Haller of D'Huy Engineering, written up after engineers visited the site at the request of Mark Stein, chief facilities and operations officer for the district.

Pluchinsky said the school hopes to be relocated in time for the 2015-16 school year. Rent on the 42,987-square-foot building will be $472,857, with a 3.5 percent increase per year through 2018. Beyond 2018, additional rental payments are subject to the school district's approval of the charter renewal.

Pluchinsky said the charter school will be paying for all renovations, and the building's owner will be reimbursing them for half.

Superintendent Joseph Roy said his concern is whether the charter school must follow the public bidding rules. In this case, a private building owner is doing renovations for the school, so the law may not apply. Roy said the district's lawyer is reviewing the matter now and suggested that the charter school's lawyers do the same.

"It may be legal to the letter of the law, but in my opinion it doesn't meet the spirit of the law," Roy said. "These are the kinds of deals public schools would be skewered for, but that may be perfectly OK. If you can generate an opinion from your lawyer and we get one from ours and they say the same thing, we'll be good to go."

The matter will come before the full school board at the June 22 meeting.